By Khalida Sarwari
Wendy DeVincenzi’s fourth-grade classroom is a little quieter these days. There are fewer jokes being cracked, fewer disruptions and one less bright, smiling face–that of Andrew Oswald.
Immediately after the 10-year-old was diagnosed with leukemia last year, he dropped out of Sacred Heart School, but his seven-month absence has not gone unnoticed by his classmates and the Sacred Heart community.
On a late March afternoon, one day before entering the doors of the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital for yet another long day of surgery, Andrew stopped by his school during lunchtime, much to the delight of his classmates, who stopped playing when they noticed him sitting at a table inside the library and waved excitedly to him from behind the windows. Andrew, sporting a black and orange San Francisco Giants hat, smiled and waved back.
Some of his classmates sauntered in and talked about what they missed about him.
“His humor!” one classmate exclaimed.
“His awesomeness,” said classmate Michael Cowburn.
A smiling DeVincenzi agreed. “He’s very energetic,” she said, nodding her head.
Patty Constantine, the mother of one of Andrew’s classmates, described him as “high-energy” and “rambunctious.”
For most of Andrew’s classmates, getting the unfortunate news about his health stirred a flood of emotions. They described feeling “sad,” “surprised,” “shocked” and even “nervous.”
Nervous, classmate Kristina Constantine said, “because he could have died if he didn’t get cured.”
As he enters the fourth phase of his treatment, this one the most intensive yet, Andrew’s future appears uncertain. If this phase is successful, he will enter what’s known as a “maintenance” phase, which could last three years and lift some of the restrictions he is under.
It would mean he could return to school in May, and do some things he’s been waiting to do: try go-kart racing, practice jiu-jitsu or go horseback riding. For the active fourth-grader, waiting around isn’t always easy, but he’s been strong and doesn’t complain, said his grandma, Shirley Oswald, with whom he lives in Campbell.
Andrew beamed as he listened to his principal, Thomas Pulchny, and Patty Constantine tell him how strong he is and what an inspiration he has been to his classmates. But some days he doesn’t feel so strong, he said. “Some days, I feel pretty tired.”
On those days, his grandmother said, Andrew will mention to her that his “count is down.”
Oswald and Pulchny noticed a difference in Andrew initially at the end of the school year last May. Whereas he once had boundless energy, Andrew began having more days where he felt tired and short of breath. When others would ask him to do things, he would say he felt “out of shape” and would refuse to go anywhere, his grandmother recalled.
“During the summer, I didn’t feel good at all,” Andrew said. “I’m usually pretty active, pretty wild, but I just felt I couldn’t throw the football or anything.”
At first, Oswald attributed his behavior to laziness, but then the signs became alarming. She finally took him to see a doctor the day after Sacred Heart’s Back to School night on Aug. 30. When the doctors confirmed their worst fear, both Andrew, who was 9 at the time, and his grandmother burst into tears. The diagnosis was acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
Andrew remembered how scared he was that day.
“I thought I could die,” he said. “I felt scared.”
As they waited for an ambulance to take them home, Andrew and his grandmother prayed and two doctors came in and joined them.
Much of the following month was a whirlwind series of blood tests, ultrasounds and “all kinds of pokes,” Andrew recalled. He spent 23 days at Lucile Packard, where he underwent intensive chemotherapy. Shirley Oswald recalled how Andrew took it all in stride, even the hair loss. What wasn’t so pleasant, Andrew remembered, was having chunks of his brown hair fall out on his pillow and go into his mouth.
While Andrew remained occupied at the hospital with tests and treatments–and in between, playing with a train set or studying–his classmates also kept busy, at first learning about their classmate’s disease and then springing into action. Knowing how much Andrew loves baseball, they assembled a baseball-themed basket with a pajama set, books, cards and toys. They visited him at the hospital and at home.
But they wanted to do even more. When the annual Parish Carnival came around in September, Constantine suggested that they sponsor a baseball booth that Oswald had helped coordinate last year to raise money for Andrew. With Andrew’s classmates manning the booth, they ended up raising $1,000, which the organizers then used to buy gas cards for Oswald, who was commuting to Palo Alto at the time.
The following month, the school hosted yet another carnival, this time for Halloween. Once again, someone suggested sponsoring a booth to raise money for Andrew, and again the organizers raised $1,000, which they then donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. That same month, more than 100 members of the school community–including parents, teachers and students–joined Andrew in LLS’s “Light the Night” walk in San Jose to raise money for the cause.
“We have a really great community at this school,” said Constantine, who spearheaded “Acts for Andrew.” “We talk about it a lot, but when you see it in action, it’s just really special.”
But the acts did not stop there and in a short time began expanding outside of DeVincenzi’s classroom. The school organized a visit by former San Francisco 49er Ronnie Lott. After hearing about Andrew at school assemblies, Pearl Biggers, who was a new student then, felt she had to do something to help. Finally, she decided a bake sale was the way to go, as it combined her love of baking and desire to help Andrew.
Over the next month she rallied students in her seventh-grade class, some in the sixth-grade class and everyone in the fourth grade to contribute homemade items for the bake sale. Then one day in December the students sold the treats in the main quad during recess and lunch, bringing in nearly $300, and donated the proceeds to LLS and Lucile Packard.
“She rallied the whole school community; it was amazing,” said Lupita Inzunza, an admissions and advancement coordinator at Sacred Heart.
This past March, the Saratoga community, and even some people from St. Lucy’s in Campbell, came together again for what organizers deemed a successful blood drive. They held the drive in the school gym, expecting no more than two dozen people, and were surprised to see 47 people show up. Andrew’s classmates were too young to donate blood, but were involved nonetheless by making baked goods and colorful posters advertising the blood drive and afterward writing thank-you notes to the donors. The blood was donated to Stanford.
The support of the Sacred Heart community, said Andrew, has been “unbelievable.”
“Acts for Andrew” began as a way to support Andrew, but everyone involved in some way has been impacted throughout the last six months, said Pulchny.
“The important thing for me is for the kids to learn about service,” Pulchny said. “It brings home that what they’re doing is making an impact. That’s the silver lining.”
Along with a handful of others, Andrew’s classmate Nick Csubak has been involved in nearly every event.
“It feels good because we’re helping our friend come back to school,” Nick said.
As the school begins preparing for one more act for Andrew before the end of the school year, Andrew spends his days either at Lucile Packard, which has become his second home, or at home in Campbell, where he receives tutoring. He also gets tutored at St. Lawrence Academy in Santa Clara and after school at Sacred Heart. He said that more than anything, he misses his friends, but they visit him as much as they can.
When he has free time, he watches TV or plays baseball as part of the Campbell Little League team, although he has to wear a vest to protect the port on his chest for his chemo treatments. But he doesn’t seem to mind that too much, because it makes him “look like macho man.”
His grandma said he is close to his older sister, Tanya, a 30-year-old sixth-grade teacher in Los Altos. She takes Andrew to “awesome” events such as Monster Jam in Oakland, San Jose Sharks and San Francisco Giants games, and to “places where I can take my remote-controlled cars.” The two of them occasionally go out to dinner and to the park, where he brings along his Staffordshire terrier, Bella.
He doesn’t like school all that much, but he enjoys social studies and hopes to one day become a pediatrician.
This fall, Andrew plans to participate in the “Light the Night” walk again, and this time around he’ll have the distinction of being selected as one of the event’s “honored heroes.”
In the meantime, the Oswalds will continue to lean on their faith to get them through the tough days.
“I pray every day that he recovers,” Shirley said. “I’m so thankful and feel so blessed that we live as close to a world class hospital as we do.”
